Benjamin Smith after Hogarth - 1795 Engraving Sigismonda

Description

A fine original stipple engraving by Benjamin Smith after William Hogarth, depicting a portrait of Sigismonda. The scene is taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, depicting Sigismonda receiving her lover's heart in a golden goblet. Smith was a student of Francesco Bartolozzi, and produced many fine plates for Boydell's editions of Hogarth and Romney. Inscribed to the lower edge 'From the Original Picture in the Collection of Ald. Boydell. Published June 4th 1795 by J. & J. Boydell at No. 90 Cheapside, and at the Shakespeare Gallery, Pall-Mall'. Unsigned dated and inscribed. On laid.

Condition

The condition is typical for a picture of this age including some discolouration and water staining to the right side. Some general surface dirt. With plate lines.

Size

31.7 x 40.9cm (12.5" x 16.1")
Sheet: 43.6 x 48.8cm (17.2" x 19.2")
Plate: 40.4 x 44.7cm (15.9" x 17.6")

Collection Information

Sulis Fine Art is extremely delighted to present this expansive collection of engravings by and after the greatest image-maker of the 18th Century, William Hogarth (1697-1764). Many of the works are by Thomas Cook, who published them in his 1806 'Hogarth Restored', while others are from the original plates acquired by the publisher John Boydell in 1789, and the later Heath edition of 1822.

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Artist Biography

William Hogarth FRSA (1697-1765) was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures termed "modern moral subjects". He is perhaps best known for his series 'A Harlot's Progress', 'A Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage A-la-Mode'. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive and influential that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".

Born in London to a lower-middle-class family, Hogarth first took up an apprenticeship with a silver engraver, and later set up his own studio, primarily working in copper. His father underwent periods of mixed fortune, and was at one time imprisoned in lieu of outstanding debts, an event that is thought to have informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge.

Perhaps most poignantly, the words of Charles Lamb encapsulate the work of Hogarth, as he described his images to be books, filled with "the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read."